


The Call of the Void

by concernedlily



Series: Entropy sequence [4]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Angst, Awkward Conversations, Brief/mentioned Eggsy/OC(s), M/M, V-Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 22:18:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5472617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concernedlily/pseuds/concernedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An anniversary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"There you go," and the hands in Eggsy's hair urged him down lower, to swallow the cock in his mouth. Deepthroating with a condom was fucking awful, the latex covering the head nudging slick and weird against his flesh: Eggsy had forgotten, all the time he'd been with Harry. "Good boy," Danny said quietly, stroking Eggsy's hair and thrusting just slightly. "You're down for me, aren't you? That's my good boy."

Yeah, that was enough of that.

He pulled off, the hands on his head falling away immediately, and replaced his mouth with his hand while he said as friendly as he could, "Don't think it's going to happen, bruv, sorry. Let me just suck you off normal, yeah?"

"Worth a go," Danny said. He touched Eggsy's lips with a wistful look, then stepped back, stripped the condom off his flagging dick and tucked himself neatly back into his jeans. "I'm not that into it vanilla, to be honest, mate. You're all right though, how about I get another round in and I'll tell you why Millwall's gonna regret selling Mbulu?"

He was a decent bloke, shit footie opinions aside. It wasn't his fault he wasn't -

Well. No point thinking about that. 

"Yeah," Eggsy said. "Yeah, that'd be nice."

***

"You were lucky with this one," Leanne said, later that week, applying the last stitch. Eggsy dug his nails into his palms and tried not to flinch; she was very close to his eye with a bloody big needle. "Might scar though, I'm afraid. Try vitamin E oil, when the stitches come out. What a bugger, cutting up your pretty face."

"He was trying to cut up my pretty throat, so I'm all right with it," Eggsy said, breathing again.

"Right," she said, gave him a pat on the arm and went to the computer to update his medical file. "Try and sleep on the other side for a few nights."

"Okay," he said.

"Bit easier when you've got the bed to yourself," she said, too casually.

"He binned _me_ ," Eggsy said wearily. He'd figured out pretty quickly that Harry had given the general population of Kingsman to understand that it had been Eggsy who'd dispensed with his services, rather than the other way round. Roxy said it was gentlemanly: Eggsy called it fucking annoying. Harry held himself fairly aloof from the non-agent staff, he had no idea they loved him, and Eggsy had put up with a lot of glares and coolness before he'd managed to get the news round that he was the one who'd been given the elbow. It had been a month: Leanne must be the last person in the whole place to know.

"Oh," she said. "That's - shit. Sorry."

"It's okay," Eggsy said. He tried a smile: the brand new stitches pulled and he abandoned it.

"We just thought -"

"What?" Eggsy said suspiciously. "Leanne..."

"Well. His drinking is up again."

Eggsy stared very hard at the black flatscreen behind her; the sight blurred a bit. "Nothing to do with me," he said harshly. "We finished?"

"Yeah," she said. "Sorry."

***

Eggsy headed over to the wing set aside for the agents’ quarters. Turning onto the corridor his rooms were on, he bumped into Harry - literally bumped into him, rounding the corner and bouncing off his broad chest.

“Harry,” Eggsy said stupidly. He looked Harry up and down, catching himself somewhere at ground level and trying not to make it look either anxious or like he was pining away pathetically. Harry didn’t _look_ like he was drinking a lot, although he did look tired, the lines in his forehead deep and bags under his eyes: bone-deep exhausted, like a year of sleep wouldn’t touch it.

“Eggsy,” Harry said. His gaze went straight to the cut on Eggsy’s face, the same mix as ever of worry and fury and pride. His gaze was followed by the backs of his fingers, warm and incredibly gentle on Eggsy’s cheek.

Eggsy’s eyes slipped closed, despite his sternest effort at having some fucking self-control, all of it lost within the pain and stress of the op ebbing away and leaving him as body and soul shattered as Harry looked. His hand found the front of Harry’s shirt and hung on.

It was so familiar, it would be so easy: he could already feel the phantom of Harry’s arms closing around him in a tight safe hug. The way Harry would slip his fingers to Eggsy’s jaw and tilt his face up and take his mouth was so close Eggsy could taste it.

He cleared his throat and stepped back. Harry’s hand fell away, back to his side, but he was still looking at Eggsy with the softest, most open light in his eyes. Eggsy wanted to kiss him so badly. It ached, dully, as real as the sensation of the new bruises and cuts.

“You’re all right,” Harry said.

Not a question: a confirmation. Eggsy said slowly, “Were you watching?”

Harry looked at him and had the decency to slap a guilty expression on his gob. “Some of it, yes. It was a good result, Eggsy. Good work.”

“Thanks,” Eggsy said blankly.

“If you’d rather I didn’t…”

“No,” Eggsy said. What he _wanted_ was for it not to matter to him whether Harry watched or not. He wanted to scrape out the bit of him that cared, but it was all of him: he was afraid if he got rid of loving Harry, there wouldn’t be anything good left. “Do what you want, whatever.”

Harry paused, watching him, the warmth on his face being replaced by a polite distance. “Of course. You’re going to rest?”

“Yeah,” Eggsy said. “‘Scuse me.” He ducked his head and pushed past Harry, hurrying towards his door.

“Eggsy,” Harry said and Eggsy stopped, half turned his head; the stitches in his cheek pulled again. It would scar at this rate, and Merlin would say unpleasant things about identifying markings on a spy’s face. “I am glad you’re well.”

Eggsy swallowed hard and carried on, relief battering through him when he closed the door behind him with Harry safely on the other side.

His rooms were still beautifully, impersonally furnished, like a posh hotel. He had his things that had been moved over from Harry’s quarters, but he hadn’t even thought yet about making the space properly his own. He almost always preferred to travel back to London, anyway: the estate had started to feel stifling, the past few weeks.

He threw himself onto the bed and curled up on his good side. JB had been dropped off when Eggsy got back in from the op and now came snuffling up the doggy stairs and onto the bed. He sat down next to Eggsy and rested his little head on Eggsy’s hip and Eggsy patted him and took deep, painful breaths.

***

"It was just weird," Eggsy said, frowning into his cider like it could tell the future. It was strong and a little sour: the village pub had started brewing their own after V-Day - the Kingsman estate orchard provided a lot of apples in recognition of the fact that half their staff spent half their time in the back room getting pissed - but they hadn’t quite got it right yet. "Like, we've split up, but it's not like we don't still, you know."

"Yeah," Roxy said, with an expression of tempered, patient ferocity over her salt and vinegar crisps. "He’s still an arse, Eggsy. 'It's for your own good' is shite, to be honest. He wants to sort his ideas out."

"He didn't mean it like that," Eggsy said. "He was worried." It was already an old conversation and there was definite boredom lurking behind Roxy's kind, dutiful side of it. He had to stop going over the same ground with her. It wasn't a crime scene: forensic attention to detail wasn't going to get him anywhere. 

“Well, what about that bloke you met?” she asked, a frightening school-prefect gleam in her eyes. 

“Which one?” Eggsy said automatically. Her mouth fell open and he winced.

“The one from that app! How many have there been? Eggsy!” she leaned forward, her expression pitched somewhere between delightedly scandalised and concerned.

“Not that many,” he said and drained the remaining half a pint in his glass. “Oh look, my round.”

“Sit back down this minute.”

He sat back down.

She folded her hands in front of her on the table and said, "Now. The one from the app." It was very businesslike: he could almost see the shadow of her glasses on her cheeks.

"Danny," he said reluctantly.

She gave him a sympathetic smile and patted his hand. "Eggsy. This is happening. No need to make it difficult."

He looked glumly into his empty glass. "Can I go and get another drink? I'll tell you, I will."

Permission granted, he fetched more drinks and she went back to looking like she was going to make him lie down on a couch and take notes on what he said. 

"So. Start with Danny."

"There's seriously not much to say," he said. He was starting to feel a bit choked and he took off his tie and stuck it in his pocket, undoing a couple of buttons at his throat. "I met him on Grindr, we met up for a drink, I gave him half a blowjob in the bogs, it didn't work out."

She raised an eyebrow. "How does a blowjob not work out?"

"He was giving it... you know. It didn't feel right." It was so weird, talking about it, the way he'd been with Harry; the acts themselves sounded so stark and he lost his words when he tried to explain how it felt, the reverent way Harry touched him when they did what looked all weird and kinky on paper, what it had meant to him.

" _Do_ I know? Hang on, what, all that fifty shades stuff you did with Harry? With a complete stranger? Eggsy!" Yeah, there it was. It wasn't that Roxy was judgemental, exactly, but she was a bit sheltered. She hardly told him anything about the few dates of hers that made it so far as bedroom privileges but from what he'd gathered lights-off missionary featured prominently.

"That was the whole _point_. And don't call it that fifty shades stuff, Christ. Harry wasn't like that. And this wasn't a complete stranger. And it was in public."

"That hardly makes it _better_ , Eggsy. For fuck's sake." She pursed her lips at him and he shrugged.

"I just - I miss the feeling I used to get. I mean, I miss Harry like fuck, but it was - I can't describe it." Bless her, she looked like she was trying to imagine it. Her eyes softened and she twitched her fingers over his; he let the touch comfort him, as she'd intended. "I wanted to know if it was me, or just him."

"And now you think it's just him?" she asked.

"I dunno." He averted his eyes from hers and picked at a chip in the scarred wood of the tabletop. "Maybe it just wasn't Danny. We had a nice chat. He wants to see me again."

"Are you going to?" 

He examined his feelings again at the idea: as when he'd seen Danny's text inviting him for another drink, it evoked not much more than a giant internal shrug. "Don't seem much point. I met another bloke in a bar last weekend. And met a girl on Tinder a couple of days ago. We're supposed to go out for a drink next week." It did sound like quite a lot when he listed it all out like that, but what was he going to do, sit in for the rest of his life? It was just a bit of fun, he wasn't lying to anyone about that.

"There doesn't seem to be much point to any of it if all you're doing is thinking about Harry," she said, with a bit more clarity than he'd have preferred. This was the problem with having girl mates. He'd told Ryan and Jamal him and Harry were finished and they'd gone _mate_ and he'd gone _yeah, mate_ and then they'd talked about what a bellend Jamal's new boss was for two hours, and then gone home.

"Yeah, maybe," he said. "I'm too busy, really, anyway. Cancelled on another bloke when this last op came up. He wasn't too happy."

"Eggsy..." she said, too nice to him. He was going to start getting arsey in a minute, like he had when it was still new and raw and he was furious with everyone and the whole terrible cold universe that Harry wasn't going to be with him anymore.

“Anyway," he said pointedly and she sighed. "What you got going on?”

She gave him a look, but she leaned back in her chair in a way that let him know she was accepting the subject change. “Not much. I’m housesitting at Mum and Dad’s this week. She’s in St Bart’s with Simon and he’s in St Tropez with Charlotte.”

“Charlotte?” he said.

“Yeah, he finished with the last one.”

That hadn't really been his point. Fucking posh people. “Jesus. How’s Somerville getting on with their dogs?”

“Bloody awful," she said, and scowled. She was very protective of Somerville, who was about nine million times better trained than JB would ever be and looked at Eggsy when he went to Roxy's like Somerville should be on the settee and Eggsy should be the one in the dog bed. "Every walk is chaos and Mrs Perkins tutted at me yesterday morning in the park.”

"Must have been difficult for you," he said. He patted her hand, mimicking her so-called sympathy earlier. She caught it under her other hand, snap-game fast, and he gave her his cheekiest grin.

"Well, it was actually. She used to tell me off for playing cops and robbers with the boys instead of dollies with the girls. She's the village harridan." She looked genuinely disconcerted, like the old bag had left an oil-slick impression on her childhood, and Eggsy flipped his hand in between hers and gave her fingers a quick squeeze.

"Sounds a treat."

"And then," she said portentously, looking irritated and taking a big drink, "I come in here, and this op Alastair's scoping, it's such a fucking pain in the arse. It’s very techy, all encryption and bloody finance systems, quite delicate, but I talk to research and they just want to blow stuff up. I think they think they're playing Call of bloody Duty."

"These the new ones?" Eggsy said. Merlin had tried to get a general warning out to the organisation but they hadn't known who to trust: V-Day then hadn't been too cruel, but it was an organisation full of people trained in combat, and the global offices had been bad.

So there’d been plenty of gaps to fill and given the even the cleaners had an entry process practically as stringent as the knights' one they'd only really got back up to capacity over the last couple of months. Which meant lots of new people to be irritated by, and Eggsy and Roxy got to feel like old lags even though they'd been full agents less than a year. "I know what you mean. _Oh, just give them a smack in the mouth, Lamorak._ Cheers, mate, they're not your broken knuckles, are they."

"No subtlety," Roxy said, frowning down into her wine. "I passed the same tests all the agents did. They think I just won't go straight to violence cause I'm the _girl_."

"Violence is easy," Eggsy said. "Loads of blokes down my old local'd give you violence for fifty quid and a kebab. Stick to your guns."

"To your guns," she said, and giggled. "Sorry. God, I'm tired. I'm taking the weekend off for once. Not even going to think about work unless it's an absolute emergency."

“Do you want to come for dinner at my mum’s on Sunday?” he said, hopeful once the idea occurred to him. Reinforcements at his mum's were always good. 

“Yeah, if you want," she said idly. "Is Jeff going to be there? Do you need me to make polite conversation?”

“I can make polite conversation with him,” Eggsy said. He could. He didn't really like to, but he could. “I’m not a total knob. He seems all right.”

“Does you mum really like him?” she said carefully. She knew more about Dean than anyone in the world, things he hadn't even told Harry.

“Seems to," he said, aware of the unfair coldness in his tone, and added as if in apology, "it's nice to see her happy.”

“Not like… you know.”

“Nah. He’s dozy, Jeff. Nice to everyone. Dais likes him.” Eggsy had mixed feelings about that. He wanted his mum happy, of course he did, and it wasn't like he was about to move home to keep her company, and he wanted Daisy to have someone around to do dad stuff with her, Dean had been useless at that shit since day one, but. Jeff was just new, he supposed. So far change for his family had pretty much always been in a downward direction.

“It’s funny, isn’t it, what makes people click together," she said, pondering. "Do you think they’ll work out?”

“Yeah, maybe," he said and took another long drink, holding the cool glass against his lip and keeping the liquid in his mouth so the acidity burst on his tongue. "This ain’t cheering me up, Rox.”

“Oh, yeah," she said, and gave him an apologetic little wince. "Sorry.”

“Is this seat free?”

Eggsy and Roxy looked up and Roxy kicked the stool out in welcome: Merlin sat down and put fresh drinks in front of them, keeping a Guinness for himself. 

"Thank fuck it's Friday," he said and they toasted to it, glasses clinking dimly. 

“Oh, there’s Anuja,” Roxy said, suddenly. “I’ve got to talk to her about - something. Text me about Sunday, Eggsy.” She picked up her drink and scrammed.

“Bye,” Eggsy said. He looked after her suspiciously and glared at Merlin. “What’s that about? Are you gonna make me talk about work shit? Friday night, bruv. Like we just said."

"We can talk about it Monday morning if you like," Merlin offered. "I’ve got a slot nice and early at eight."

"Fine, what," Eggsy said ungraciously. He finished his cider and started on the Scotch Merlin had brought him, a sure sign of something unpleasant to come. Aside from the cider the pub did so much business from Kingsman it probably had the best high-end spirits selection in the country and Merlin often took advantage of it to try to improve Eggsy's taste in booze, which even Harry had given up on.

“You ran into Harry, when you left med bay,” Merlin said. He drummed his fingers on the table: Eggsy dragged his gaze to his hand and stared at it pointedly and Merlin stopped. Eggsy didn't respond and Merlin narrowed his eyes at Eggsy and added, “If he’s bothering you…”

“What about ‘you’ll be able to work with him’?” Eggsy said. It came out belligerent: he let it.

Merlin looked disappointed in him and Eggsy squashed the instinctive response of guilt and worry: bloody recruitment process training them to chase after Merlin's approval like ducklings after Mum. “Not if he’s actively making life difficult, Eggsy. Come on.”

“It’s fine," Eggsy said. Merlin gave him a steady look and he said, "Look, before today I don’t think we’d spoke in two weeks. Oh no, tell a lie - we both went to Adam’s birthday dinner last week and he asked me to pass the salt.”

"What did he want?" Merlin said and swished his Guinness round a bit, the malty black swirling into milky-coffee threads in his glass. Eggsy could smell it and it reminded him of Harry.

"Saltier food?"

"Funny, lad. What did he want today?"

"I don't know," Eggsy said, uncomfortable: he had a sudden sensual flash of Harry's fingers caressing his cheek, how Eggsy had wanted him to do more. "Nothing. He said he watched some of the mission, he saw me get hurt. He was glad I was okay."

Merlin watched him. "Okay," he said eventually. "I'll have a word with him."

"No, don't," Eggsy said. "It's fine."

"Not up to you whether I think Galahad's making the best use of company time and tech," Merlin said. "Don't worry about it."

"All right," Eggsy said quietly. 

"Good," Merlin said. "Did you hear what that wanker Fraser did in the kitchens yesterday?"

"No," Eggsy said, relaxing. "What?"

***

"Bloody hell," Roxy said, giving Eggsy's shirt and tie a disbelieving look. She looked down at her rolled-cuffed jeans and t-shirt. "I'm underdressed. Is someone coming for dinner I don't know about? Like the Queen?"

"I've got jeans on," Eggsy said defensively. "I don't want him getting too comfortable just yet. Come on, I'm on double yellows."

"Are we putting the frighteners on him?" she said. She let the front door swing shut behind her and followed him down the road. 

“Not the frighteners,” Eggsy said. “But if he came away thinking we already know where we’ll hide the body if he fucks my mum over, that’d be okay.”

“I think we can manage that,” she said agreeably. She didn’t have to remind him to open the car door for her and he went round and slid in behind the wheel with the usual little shiver of pleasure at his own motor. Stupid, really, having a car in London, but he loved having his own space and the way driving emptied his mind. He’d compromised on a sensible five-door Vauxhall with a car seat in the back for Daisy, although he was guiltily considering buying something sporty, for the weekend: he’d been insured on Harry’s Aston Martin when they were together which had scratched the itch, but he could hardly nip round and borrow it now.

“Did your mum and dad have good holidays?”

“Oh, fine,” she said dismissively. She stuck her phone in the dock and started to flick through her music. “One of the maids at Mum’s hotel did something horrific like forget to dust a table and she moaned at me for about twenty minutes as soon as she was in the door. Typical.”

“They didn’t mind you wasn’t coming round theirs for lunch?”

“God, no. I didn’t give them a chance to ask, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Can we stop at the next little Sainsbury’s or Tesco? I want to get your mum some flowers.”

“You don’t have to,” he said affectionately.

“I do. This’ll do, pull over here.”

***

Mum was delighted with the flowers, and the bottle of wine Eggsy handed over: not something he’d bought in little Sainsbury’s, and Roxy raised her eyebrow at him when she saw the label. She was even worse about that than Harry, who pretended to care (and did a bit) but whose real priority was quantity rather than quality.

He picked Daisy up for a cuddle that was cut short by her grim determination to slobber all over Roxy. Eggsy rolled his eyes and handed Daisy over for a hug, and then to drag Roxy off to her room to show off some new shoes.

By the time that had all gone off Mum had buggered off back to the kitchen to check the roast and it was just Jeff and Eggsy in the little front hall.

“Wotcha, Eggsy,” Jeff said with an easy smile, and Eggsy shook his hand. “Get you a drink? Lager?”

“No, mate, you’re all right, let me,” Eggsy said and gave him a sharp-toothed smile back. “Can’t let guests get their own drinks, can I? You go through.”

Jeff nodded and wandered off and Eggsy went into the kitchen to get that much needed drink and to check on his mum.

“Are you being nice, babe?” she said. She glanced over her shoulder briefly, as he went and ferreted a couple of bottles of Stella out of the fridge, then went back to chopping carrots.

He went over and kissed her cheek and she relaxed and smiled. “‘Course I am, Mum. Can I do anything?”

“Stir the gravy, if you want,” she said. “Everything okay, Eggs?”

Eggsy kept smiling and didn’t let his hand flinch up in the direction of the healing cut on his face. The neat little stitches were still in and it was itchy as fuck.

He broke up the skin that was starting to form on the gravy and stirred it back in. It smelled good, rich and meaty, like the roasts he remembered sitting down to with his mum and dad together; bit different from the Bisto jar that had been in the cupboard while Dean was around.

“Yeah, good,” he said.

“Work okay?”

“Good, yeah.”

“JB okay?”

“Good, yeah.”

“Nice to see Roxy again,” she said, with sweet, irritating enthusiasm.

“I’m not going out with Roxy,” he said. He stirred round the gravy pan with long, sweeping strokes. “We’re mates.”

“I know!” she said, giving him an anxious smile. “I only said it’s nice to see her again. Daisy loves her.”

“Shall I set the table?” he said desperately. He opened the top drawer, looking for the cutlery, and found a pile of clean folded tea towels instead.

Mum shut the drawer. “Jeff’s done it. Are you seeing anyone, love?”

“No,” he said. “I’m busy at work. And it’s not even been that long, Mum. I’m not going to just pick up the first person who offers.”

“Oh no, yeah,” she said. She put her carrots in the saucepan and went to put the kettle on. “Yeah, ‘course.”

He said, “Mum, I didn’t mean -”

“Can you take Jeff that lager?” she said, with a bright, brittle smile. “And give Roxy and Daisy a shout, dinner’ll be out soon.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said quietly. “I’ll open the wine, shall I?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Thanks, Eggsy.”

***

Dinner was nice, tasty and plenty of it. For all Eggsy’s protestations about getting along with Jeff, Roxy took in with one look that he’d had a bit of an issue with his mum and unobtrusively steered the conversation the whole way through, managing to get more information out of Jeff about his job, his life, his hopes and his dreams than Eggsy could have managed to be interested in if he'd had a thousand years of dinners. Mum cheered up noticeably from it and he squeezed Roxy’s hand under the table to say thanks.

“I’ll wash up, Mum,” Eggsy said when everyone was finished. “You go and have a sit down. Do you want a tea or coffee or anything?”

“Coffee would be nice, babe,” Mum said comfortably. “Can you put a drop of Baileys in it for me?”

“Bloody hell, Mum.”

“That sounds lovely, Michelle,” Roxy said and gave Eggsy a cheeky smile. “One for me, too, please, Eggsy.”

“And me!” Daisy said, looking at Roxy adoringly. 

Roxy laughed. “I don't know about that, darling. Maybe Eggsy can make you a hot chocolate instead.”

“Please, Eggs?” she said to him and he nodded.

“I'll help,” Jeff said. He stood up and started collecting their empty plates. He paused when he got to Mum’s and dropped a little kiss on the top of her head and Eggsy watched the happy smile she gave him, the way her eyes lit up and her whole face looked bright.

Between them, he and Jeff brought all the plates and glasses through. Jeff started to run the hot water for washing up and Eggsy switched on the kettle and found the Baileys. The French press took a bit of searching for, and he found an open bag of coffee in the fridge. It had been there a while - he was the only one who used it, Mum drank Nescafe - but a doubtful sniff seemed to suggest it was okay, if long past the lovely dark scent of freshness. 

He couldn't find the hot chocolate and it took a couple of cupboards before Jeff said, “Top left, for the hot chocolate. You do it with milk, I'll stick some in the microwave.”

“Great,” Eggsy said shortly. He started to wash dishes, piling them up higgeldy-piggeldy on the draining board. He could feel Jeff behind him, making his neck prickle, and he almost flinched the first time he saw Jeff's arm in the corner of his eye, reaching for a plate to dry.

They worked together in silence to wash and dry the dishes. It was odd: this had always been Eggsy's job, before, he didn't think Dean could have said where the tea towels were kept if his life had depended on it. The microwave hummed behind them and the kettle bubbled and boiled. It felt domestic and cozy, like the first scene of a horror film.

Eggsy stepped away to make the coffee and whisk the hot chocolate into the warm milk, nice and thick like Daisy liked. The Baileys fell into the black coffee and sank and he looked around for a spoon.

“Here you go, Eggs,” Jeff said. 

Eggsy turned round and took the teaspoon he was holding out. “It's Eggsy,” he said quietly. “Not Eggs. Or Eggo, or Gary, or Mug-” he bit himself off. He hadn't meant to say the last one, shit; they were going to have to stay a bit longer, or get a taxi back and pick the car up tomorrow. He’d obviously drunk more than he'd realised. 

“Yeah, course,” Jeff said. He met Eggsy's gaze steadily. Eggsy was the first to look away and Jeff said, “Look, Eggsy, I know you got your worries. And I know you ain't looking for no dad, at your age. But I'm very fond of your mum. I think she’d like you and me to get on, if we can.”

“I know,” Eggsy said. He untwisted his mouth and turned back to the sink. “It's good she's got you round.”

“Eggsy! Hot chocolate!” Daisy shouted, skidding into the room, Roxy entering more decorously behind her. Daisy landed at Jeff’s feet and threw her arms up and he picked her up. She snuggled easily into him, hiding her face in his neck, and when she peeked up over Jeff’s shoulder Eggsy pulled a grotesque face that made her shriek with laughter. 

“I’ll take them through, shall I?” Jeff said. Daisy grumbled when he tried to put her down and he said, “Hang on tight, then.” She clung her arms round his neck and her legs on his hips like a baby monkey and he picked up Mum’s and Daisy’s mugs. 

“Thanks, mate,” Eggsy said and Jeff gave him a brief grin and went out. 

“Everything okay?” Roxy said. She took a sip of her coffee and picked up Jeff's discarded tea towel. 

“Yeah,” he said. He held out his arms and she stepped into them and hugged him tight. He hooked his chin over her shoulder and took a deep breath. “Yeah, it's good.”

***

‘Good’ lasted another couple of weeks, until the anniversary.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry opened his front door and said, “You're fucking drunk,” in a disgusted tone. 

Eggsy squinted at him in the summer evening light. “So’s fucking you,” he said belligerently. He put his hand out and groped for the wall, held it. 

“Yes, but I had the fucking decency to do it in my own fucking house,” Harry said. “Get the fuck inside.” The words dripped acid but his hand on Eggsy was gentle, first on his wrist taking him off the wall and then on the small of Eggsy’s back, guiding him inside.

He closed the door behind them, putting himself firmly between it and Eggsy like just maybe he wanted Eggsy to stay, and Eggsy turned round and was in Harry's arms instantly, both of them clutching.

Harry smelled the same as always, spicy boozy richness, and he was as broad and warm and nice to hug as ever. He cradled Eggsy's head against his shoulder and Eggsy felt the anger and fear that had driven him to the bottom of a bottle and then straight round to Harry's drain away.

“Sorry,” he mumbled into Harry's throat and Harry made a low noise in his chest. “All day I kept thinking about the church, and the gun. I just wanted to see you.”

“I'm glad you're here,” Harry whispered.

They helped each other up the stairs and fell together onto the couch, still all wrapped up. There was an empty bottle of brandy on the side table, another two-thirds full, a crystal glass next to it with a mouthful or two left. There was what seemed to be another of the crystal glasses in shards on the floor, and the grand gilt-framed mirror over the fireplace was covered in spidered cracks out from the impact point. 

“That's seven years’ bad luck,” Eggsy said. 

“How much worse can it get?” Harry said. 

Eggsy put his fingers on the knotted scar tissue on Harry's temple and shuddered; his next breath was wet and uneven and he closed his eyes and tried to cuddle tighter against Harry, crowding him into the back of the settee. “Don't say that.”

“Sorry,” Harry said softly. He captured Eggsy's hand off his head and brought it to his mouth to kiss Eggsy's fingertips. Eggsy curled his hand into Harry's bigger one and held it.

Eggsy was getting hard, entwined as they were. “Sorry,” he said. “Ignore it.”

Harry gave a rusty chuckle. “Don't be offended if I don’t reciprocate. Not sure I could get it up just now if my life depended on it.”

“Don't _say_ things like that, not today,” Eggsy said again; his voice cracked. “Just shut up.”

“All right,” Harry said, sounding raw and sad. “It's all right, dear boy,” and Eggsy buried his face against Harry's chest, focusing on the steady beat of his heart.

***

Eggsy woke up stiff, bad-tempered, and feeling rough as fuck. His brain was pounding a resentful rhythmic crash against his skull and his mouth was dry. He was still on the settee, the blanket Harry had pulled over both of them during the night now tucked securely just round him.

He got up, bringing the blanket with him round his shoulders, and opened the balcony doors. The early morning was just touching the mews and he took deep fresh breaths. He and Harry had been together over the winter: he’d never lived here while the little street was in full friendly summer bloom, colourful and alive.

He went downstairs and into the study. The walls were cluttered as ever with regimented rows of front pages but he went straight to HEAD LINE-UP. The only one he'd bought, framed, and put up there himself. He'd left it here when he moved out; the headlines were Harry's thing more than his and he'd stopped doing it when the man himself was alive again. Harry had moved this one when he'd come back to the house, put it straight in front of the desk.

It was a year and a day since he'd watched Harry die. A year since he'd put on his first Kingsman suit and saved the world. 

It had been a fucking long one. He folded the blanket and left it on the desk, and went to find Harry. 

He wasn't far, slumped in his chair at the dining room table and working his way sullenly through a toast rack, half-full of limp and cooling toast, the butter dish and jar of marmalade next to it looking like they'd already taken a battering.

Harry was always a complete bastard when he was hungover - his tolerance was high enough it was rare he was drunk enough to get one - and his body language broadcast _fuck off_ so clearly the postman would probably do the top half of the street and then escape without knowing why. 

Eggsy wanted desperately to touch him, kiss the top of his head, even just rest a hand on his shoulder, but the mutual exception granted last night seemed plainly at an end. He felt a bit like when he'd quit the fags for the first time, done six smug months and then nicked a couple off Ryan on a night out and been right back on ten a day, gagging for a smoke constantly. He'd only managed to stop for good when his mum had got pregnant with Daisy.

What it would take to stop being ready to fall under Harry's spell again Eggsy didn't know, and didn't want to think about.

“Hi,” he said instead. Harry grunted at him. He grabbed Harry's empty mug on the way past and filled it up with coffee at the same time he got himself one, adding an extra sugar or two to wake himself up.

Eggsy put more bread in the toaster and found a plate. Harry had rearranged the cupboards again, which meant he'd been having sleepless nights.

He looked into the pantry as well. There was an open pot of raspberry jam, his own preference, covered in a good centimetre of green-black mould. He threw it in the bin and rescued an unopened jar from the dark depths of the cupboard.

He pulled a chair up the table with a deliberate scrape. Harry looked up at him with an expression of tired malevolence and Eggsy dredged up a provokingly angelic smile and helped himself to cold toast. 

“Don't put the marmalade knife in the preserves,” Harry snapped. It was such a reassuringly familiar refrain Eggsy had to physically stop himself from doing what he would have done in the old days, which was to lick the marmalade off the knife, driving Harry mad, and then give him a marmalade-flavoured kiss, driving him mad again but in a different way. Harry caught Eggsy’s eye, his expression flashing hot with the same memory, and then Harry looked away, awkward.

“Good fucking morning to you too,” Eggsy said instead. He produced a spare knife and buttered his toast, covering it carefully edge to edge, then opened the jam with its little pop of freshness and slathered that on too.

Harry eyed the thickness of it - his toast had an abstemious barely-there layer of marmalade, like he thought his dormitory master would come along any minute and tell him off - and didn't say anything even when Eggsy took an enormous, unmannerly bite. He did chew with his mouth closed: some hills weren't worth the dying on.

They worked their way through another two rounds each in silence. It started fragile and worked its way round to companionable, even comfortable. Eggsy watched Harry's handsome profile and his clever fingers as he prepared each slice precisely as he wanted.

Eventually Harry ate his last mouthful neatly. He sat back and sighed, staring at his plate, and Eggsy paused what he was doing and waited.

“I'm going to the memorial in Trafalgar Square," Harry said. His shoulders were tense, almost hunched, and the unhappiness on his face made Eggsy’s chest hurt with sympathy and regret. "Do you want to come?"

Eggsy stared at the last two mouthfuls of toast on his plate and ate one slowly. “Yeah,” he said. “I will. Thanks.”

He'd have to text Roxy: he was supposed to be going up to the manor with her, where she and Merlin and anyone else who fancied it were going get riproaringly wankered and probably fall asleep in a bush.

Eggsy had been quite looking forward to it, inasmuch as he’d been able to deal with anything about this day coming up, but it was no competition.

"Do you think about it?” he said. He mopped up a fallen blob of jam with his last piece of toast and popped it into his mouth, focusing on the sweetness of it in each passing moment, the way Harry had taught him. “Killing all those people.”

Harry rubbed his face and stared over Eggsy's shoulder. His horrible goblin painting was back on the wall above the breakfast bar and looked accusingly down on them both. "Yes. I’ve been thinking about the signal, recently. About - my responsibility, I suppose."

Eggsy nodded slowly. “You weren’t responsible.” He felt as if he were on the top of a high building and he might jump, or he might save himself, or his knees might bend and throw him off the top without his conscious notice. Harry radiated a still, leashed fury at the best of times: now, the violence of the signal felt very close, though just in memory. “I think about it, too.”

“Do you?” Harry said. He didn’t seem able to meet Eggsy’s eyes but Eggsy felt Harry’s ankle brush his gently, the warmth of Harry’s long legs coming to bracket his. He should have felt caged, but if he was then Harry was holding the key and he was safe there. “I'm sorry you were watching, Eggsy. I didn't - well.” He gave a harsh bark of a laugh. “I didn't intend quite a lot of things.”

“No, I didn't mean that,” Eggsy said: he felt as exposed and open as he’d ever felt bent over with Harry’s cock in him so deep he’d felt they’d never fall apart. He picked his way around the words he wanted to use and Harry watched him, holding the tension in the room so Eggsy didn’t have to. “Killing all the people. I think about - their heads blowing up. Merlin pressed the button, but it was my idea.”

Harry looked like he’d been hit; literally: Eggsy had seen that, and he knew, the way Harry went disbelief-realisation-reaction split-second quick. He leaned forward and said, “Eggsy…” Eggsy looked him straight in the eye, no idea what look was on his own face, feeling sick and clean and blank all at once. His body flushed warm, then prickled cold again.

Harry reached for Eggsy’s hands slowly and uncurled them, rubbing at the marks in Eggsy’s palms where his own fingernails had dug in. Harry said, “They chose to take the chip. To save their own skins and leave everyone else to Valentine’s plan.”

“Yeah, the politicians and stuff,” Eggsy said. The thoughts only shaped themselves as he said them: he'd never let himself line them up this way before, never fully looked at the whole they made in his head.

It had smelled of smoke, that was what he remembered the most, of whatever chemical trickery had produced the colourful little pops. The pervasive metallic scent of blood hadn’t soaked the air of the bunker until later, after he'd killed Gazelle and Valentine, after the other bodies had lain where they'd fallen for hours. “But there were loads more. The guards, people who worked for him. Did you ever watch any of that shit, from the bunker?”

Harry's gaze was fixed on him, his thumbs moving delicately on the back of Eggsy's hands. If Eggsy so much as flinched just now he'd be in Harry's arms: he felt unbearably seen, like he'd written down all the worst secret parts of himself and handed it over to Harry to be marked, expecting the red pen. 

Harry was kind, instead, like there was nothing Eggsy could say that would change how Harry looked at him: maybe Harry thought there wasn't. “Parts of it, yes. You never said you thought like this about it.”

“You never asked,” Eggsy said and Harry gave him a smile full of gentle guilt. Eggsy twined their fingers together and looked down at his hands snug and safe in Harry's bigger ones. “I might not have thirty years of shit-tips to look back on, but I've still got them.”

“Eggsy -” Harry said. Eggsy felt the strain that shuttered through his body and squeezed Harry's hands in his. Harry bent his head towards Eggsy's and Eggsy mirrored him, unthinking: he had a brief flash from the intuition he was developing in the field, imagining a situation as if he were an outside observer, saw the rough heart shape they made, curved into one another. “Are we really going to talk about this? Now?”

“Maybe we should have talked about it months ago,” Eggsy said, aching. It was about the chattiest Harry had ever been, about stuff like this, real stuff; he’d never felt like Harry was so open to him. He wasn’t sure what he caused this new, interestingly confessional Harry but he liked it, it made him feel brave and he blurted, “Harry, the interrogation testing -”

“I don't blame you,” Harry said. He glanced at the door, and back at Eggsy: he held himself like he was about to perform field surgery on a wound he expected to be fatal.

“Good,” Eggsy said, stopping himself from sounding arsey only with significant effort. “It wasn't my bloody fault. Tell me - I don't know. Why you hated it.”

“Why did I hate having my - having you used for a box-ticking exercise where I let you push me into saying things that were very painful for both of us?” Harry said.

He sighed and leaned back and Eggsy let him put the distance between them, Harry's hands slipping out of his. He ignored the spike of loneliness he felt, the little nudge of worry, now, that any time they touched could be the last time, and he wouldn't know, their orbits circling them away from one another instead of spinning close. “I don't know, why do you think?”

“I didn't think you'd react like that,” Eggsy said. The memories weren't very clear, he'd done his best not to think about it, but he remembered vividly the sensation of panic, how quickly he'd lost his grip on Harry's responses and his own fear, the rollercoaster careering off the track and into dizzying heights and trips. “I don't know what I did expect.”

“It frightened me,” Harry said quietly. He looked small somehow, like he was curling up on the inside. “When I realised what you’d seen, from my records - I couldn’t bear it, what you must be thinking. You were very good, you know. You were so cold to me.”

“And then I brought up my dad,” Eggsy said. That, at least, was a scar that had healed: they’d had to talk about him, once Harry had become any part of Eggsy's life at home with Mum, and Eggsy had enjoyed hearing about what his dad had been like as an adult. It was the one thing that being brought into the light of the interrogation testing had bleached and faded, made harmless.

Harry gave a limp smile. “So since I was sure you were going to hate me anyway -”

“Go big or go home?” Eggsy said, smiling with helpless affection: Harry was so fucking dramatic. Harry gave him a tremulous, hopeful look and knocked his ankle against Eggsy's again carefully. Something eased in Eggsy that had been tight for a long time, like pressing on an old sore bruise and discovering it had got better.

“Yes, I suppose so,” Harry said. He rolled his eyes and some air seemed to come back into the room. “If you want to put it like that. I am sorry about the files, as much as anything. There are things in them… well. That I would have very much liked you never to know.”

“I'm not sorry,” Eggsy said, reining back the fierceness he felt, at the idea of not having that precious knowledge of Harry. It had been what made Harry real to him, more than Eggsy’s saviour, more than the oldest best Galahad in Kingsman history; they never could have even started, without it. “Not about that. I like it, knowing about you.”

“Do you? Maybe I should have liked the chance to tell you myself, then. It wasn't fair of Merlin, to use you like that.” There was a glint in Harry's eyes at that, although he and Merlin had been getting on better, the last couple of weeks: the conversations people started with Eggsy starting _did you hear what happened now_ had halved at least.

“You wouldn't’ve, though, would you?” Eggsy said narrowly, adding, “I told him off for it.”

“So I believe,” Harry said, and he gave Eggsy a small smile, mischievous with pride. He sobered again and said, “I wouldn't, probably, no. I don't give you enough credit, Eggsy.”

“You didn't think I'd - _Harry_ ,” Eggsy said, upset. He reached for Harry again and Harry took his hand. “Christ, if you think - because somebody hasn't been fucking perfect, you shouldn't still -”

He shut his mouth so fast he bit the top of his tongue; it stung and his mouth tasted briefly of blood. 

“Eggsy,” Harry said, soft. “Eggsy, no. Of course I do.”

The moment caught like a snowflake in a bright winter ray of sun, hanging. If Eggsy kissed Harry now, he'd respond.

“I should get ready,” he said. He'd meant it to be with certainty, but it came out with difficulty instead: the snowflake carried on drifting on the air. 

Harry’s hands clenched painfully on his, and let him go. Harry cleared his throat and stood up, starting to collect up their dirty dishes. “There's still some things of yours in the top drawer of the dresser.”

“Thanks,” Eggsy said. It was for the best. Probably. He didn't linger in the doorway.

***

They didn't talk in the taxi on the way. Harry looked lost in thought, staring down at his clasped hands. Eggsy didn't want to get lost. He looked out of the window at all the people walking towards Westminster and didn't think about any of their lives at all. 

Trafalgar Square was packed and unnaturally quiet. They'd set up a stage under Nelson’s column, black flags over the National Gallery heading under the arch and down the Mall. The fourth plinth bore a stylised sculpture of white heather.

Kids were handing out the real thing. Eggsy gave an involuntary smile at their beaming excitement and self-importance at being part of the day, too young to have caught the solemnity or outright tragedy of everyone else, and took two sprigs. He pinned one to his own t-shirt and Harry stood still for the other to be pinned to his jumper; his breath stirred the hair on Eggsy's forehead and Eggsy rested his face on Harry's chest for just a second, felt Harry grip his upper arms gently.

“Look,” Harry said, and nodded to a set-aside section next to the steps. The Queen was being escorted to her seat by her grandson: even the kids playing on the lions went silent. The Cross-Party Cabinet were taking up seats on the stage, the Archbishop of Canterbury on the other side. 

Eggsy tuned out then. He was here to be with people, not to listen to the PM in her shiny shoes and colourful skirt suit drone on. Harry was listening with a distant, polite expression: Eggsy had no idea if he was actually paying attention. The sound rose around them, the echo of a thousand choked-quiet sobs, drowned finally by the Red Arrows flypast. 

That was when he found the tears in his eyes. He turned to Harry, not knowing if he could expect comfort or even welcome, and Harry put an arm around his waist and drew him close, letting Eggsy hide his face in his shoulder. Eggsy felt warm where Harry touched him and he let everything else just fade out, watched flashes of light dance behind his eyelids and listened to the peculiar taut quality of the silence.

There couldn’t be a person here who hadn’t lost someone, maybe weren’t very many who hadn’t dealt out a lot of pain or even death themselves. He thought of how the land fell away under Kingsman’s jets when he flew out on a mission, all the people on their little patches of garden, looking over the fence at their neighbours. He realised he was trembling: Harry pulled him in more tightly. 

Eggsy stirred at the first notes of the Last Post, a lone piper at the front of the stage. All around people were lifting their heads as if coming out of a spell, tear stained and embarrassed.

The great and the good started to file down Whitehall in a procession, taking the eternal flame to rest in Westminster Hall before it started a tour of the country. The crowd started to drift after it, a chatter rising and holding at a low level. Eggsy hung back and Harry stayed by him.

“Do you want to walk up to the shop instead, get the shuttle?” Eggsy asked. “Everyone’s at the manor. Roxy’s there.”

“You’re not going to your mother?” Harry said. He didn’t look at Eggsy but Eggsy thought what he was reading in the way he swayed just slightly closer was guarded hope.

“Not today,” he said. He’d thought about it, but this was what was right: Kingsman were his family too.

“All right then,” Harry said. “Yes. Thank you, Eggsy.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Eggsy said, surprised. “It’s your bloody organisation.”

Harry did look at him then, and Eggsy had never seen that rawness on his face before, not in public. “Not for that,” he said quietly. Eggsy was dimly aware they’d slowed, looking at one another: Harry’s eyes were dark and soft and sad, his mobile mouth parted and still.

“Don’t fucking stop in the middle of the fucking pavement,” somebody snarled and shoved past him and Eggsy jolted, looked round ready to yell back: the community spirit was obviously back to the usual every-man-for-himself of the city.

Harry touched his elbow, pulling him back. Eggsy dawdled, hands in the pockets of his jeans, following him down the pavement with a careful distance between them.

As the streets got busy and noisy he hurried to catch up, and Harry glanced over at him and smiled.


End file.
